What Are Google Image Badges and How Do They Work?

Good old Google Image Search has undergone a drastic new upgrade with the introduction of Google Image Badges, available on the Google app for Andriod and mobile web. For the first time, these badges make search more straightforward and streamlined, by giving users more information about the type of images they’re accessing.

These badges are located at the bottom left-hand corner of Google Images Results, and the thematic tags help to categorise images by recipes, videos, products, and animated images (GIFs). In a nutshell, they help to clarify further actions you can take in each image, as exampled by the cupcake animation below …

This new visual discovery functionality is not the first time Google has taken a step closer to Pinterest style search. It also recently launched a “Similar Items” feature on mobile web and the Android Search app that uses machine learning technology to help users find products they love, as well as the places they can purchase their picks.

As well as this, in April 2017, it expanded the ‘Similar Items’ functionality to also include apparel, making an even bigger not to Pinterest!

How do Google Image Badges work?

As Google can’t guarantee that Image badges will be shown automatically, they’re advising publishers to add Recipe markup on their page for recipes; Product markup for shopping sites; and Video markup for sites with videos. However, for GIFs, Google is able to do that all by itself.

Need to know whether your images have marvellous markup? The Structured Data Testing Tool has been updated to help you check your images. Should you need any further information, get in touch with us at iWeb, we’re happy to talk!